Macquarie Dictionary User Reviews

Macquarie Dictionary
Macquarie Dictionary
Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

Top reviews

Official Australian English Dictionary

Absolutely fabulous. Correct spelling for Australia. No need to put up with American misspellings. Spells colour, flavour, cancelled, authorisation, maximised, and others, all correctly. What a relief! Definitely recommend it.

Buggy

It was fine on my iPhone 13 for a while. Suddenly lost the pronunciation. It says playing but no sound can be heard.

I will modify the rating when the application becomes more stable.

Nice to have a fantastic dictionary in your pocket

Sadly the *audio* pronunciations are for common words only, not rare or uncommon words. There is no system integration at all, so spotlight/siri doesn’t work with this dictionary. The in app search is not live/auto reactive, so if you struggle with spelling that may be an issue.

Great dictionary, but the app is totally. Don’t bother

Not what I was expecting. Was more expecting a dictionary that can be read through. Waste of money.

Rip Off

You don’t get much for the price!
No thesaurus feature a terrible search bar that offers no predictive text function so if you’re not sure on the spelling you’ve got no hope unless you want to browse and scroll through thousands of words. Look elsewhere.

Terrible

The app pronunciation function does not work on iPhones!! Complete waste of $20. Looking for a refund as that was the pure purpose of my purchase.

Invisible search box text

I can’t read what I type into the search box. The text is invisible.

Also, ever heard of a night mode? Or at least something more subtle? The colour scheme is garish. Especially the green, it’s way fluro.

what a joke

this app is an honest-to-God joke. Even more so now after the update than it was before; which is saying a lot. Please people, don’t waste your money. Read my previous review.

Needs a little Polish

Good to finally see an update in Dec 2019 after many years. Hopefully these will be more frequent in the future.

It is fantastic to have an Australian dictionary at hand on your phone. Macquarie is the standard and I use it regularly.

The interface could do with some improvement to make it a little more intuitive. Also, synonyms and antonyms are missing.
Show more

A little old

It’s hard for this dictionary to compete with the free online ones like Oxford and Webster. It’s even harder when it’s last update was 2016. Be careful when you purchase it. It’s a little old.

Useful app

I have both the Mac and the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, which also has a Thesaurus. A Thesaurus would be a very useful addition to the Mac.
It is most convenient to have them both for comparison on my iPad.

Great

Love the app, would like to see the Macquarie thesaurus as an app.
Have used the Macquarie books for years, now with the app it’s easily transportable; making it useful in many places.
Love that they are Australian and include Australian vernacular! has been useful in court proceedings.

Overly fussy design impedes readability

This is of course a great authority, but wood grain and, particularly, gum leaves on the definition results are a complete nuisance and put me off using it. The type could have been larger too. Someone has given the designers too much say at the expense of usability.

Excellent Australian Resource

I have used the paper version for decades and this version for a few years. I refer to both frequently and find the app version much easier in most uses. I thoroughly recommend this app

Great dictionary, but the app...

The dictionary is great, but the app lacks:
- iPhone X compatibility
- Bookmarks folder management: I have around 1200 words and I can’t category them by creating folders like most apps propose, it takes ages to look for the word I’m looking for in my bookmarks.
- There are only definitions, almost no examples.
Show more

App needs some work

As a dictionary, the Macquarie is adequate. But the app is shoddy. It’s hard to believe that any app with a search function would lack autocomplete, yet Macquarie does.

Ideal resource for the language

If you listen to English, or read, write or speak it, then this is a great source of knowledge and understanding. Especially in Australia.

It’s fast, accurate and fascinating, easily the equal of the Oxford, and it works when you’re offline.

Macquarie Australian Dictionary

Very happy with this app. I have found it more useful than the equivalent Concise OED.

Great content - when you can find it

By and large a good dictionary with excellent Australian colloquialism representation. On only a few occasions have I found words not represented.

The app's browse feature needs additional work. Misspell a word and you're toast. It would be preferable to locate the desired word using a letter-by-letter hierarchy noting specifically where the spelling error is. In the mean-time Google fuzzy logic has been a friend in resolving difficult spelling.

TheThe search function could also be improved. It fails to find word derivatives often.

Otherwise, a great app.
Show more

Honour not Honor

Absolutely great, very thorough and abundant. Could do with a sounds like feature.